A Japanese producer made his own The Life Of Pablo without hearing the original and it’s brilliant

With Tidal being unavailable in Japan, one producer took matters into his own hands.

Though the wide release of Kanye West’sThe Life Of Pablo may seem like an afterthought for some of us, it marks the album’s first release in countries without access to Tidal. That includes Japan, where a producer named TOYOMU used the delay to create a deeply bizarre and fascinating alternative.

On Imagining “The Life Of Pablo”, the producer adapts lyrics (sourced from Genius) and samples (sourced from WhoSampled) from Kanye’s original to try and recreate a record he was incapable of hearing. The resulting album places familiar sounds and lyrics in an alien context, creating something truly disorienting. It doesn’t sound anything like The Life Of Pablo as we know it, but it’s the most wonderfully strange thing you’ll hear on the internet today.

“Subscription services in Japan are too slow, most people are still using iTunes and buying CDs. I thought it might be a good idea to make the whole album without listening to it,” he tells Pigeons And Planes. Though Kanye’s album is now available internationally on Apple Music, the producer admits he still hasn’t listened to it.

Listen to Imagining “The Life Of Pablo” below, and grab it on Bandcamp before it gets taken down.